You're asking for trouble when you're possibly the most alternative of alternative art-rock bands and you've told fans to expect your new album to sound like Bare Trees, soft-rock titans Fleetwood Mac's album from 1972 ... as if played by hard-core punks Black Flag circa their ferocious Jealous Again EP (1980).

"I was just being kind of a little flowery to suck people in," says Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth's towering singer/guitar-abuser.

Well, I went out and bought Bare Trees and Jealous Again. Frankly, I can hear the Fleetwood Mac a lot more than the Black Flag.

"Ha ha ha, that's funny," Moore says. "Yeah, probably at this point. In our geriatric state, it's hard to get that Black Flag vibe going. But, you know, Black Flag just because of the guitar approach, the amps approach ..."

Sonic Nurse is the supremely cool New York band's 17th album in nearly a quarter of a century of making strikingly original, sometimes punishing but always fascinating rock music. It's a little smoother around the edges than past works - hence the Fleetwood Mac comparison - but it still has Sonic Youth's recognisable fire and controlled discord.

Such music has rarely troubled the charts. Singles Kool Thing and 100% came closest in 1990 and 1992 respectively, yet Sonic Youth have sustained an impressively long career by refusing to compromise their sounds.

"When we first started in '80, '81, even then I sort of remember having a sense that there might be some longevity here," the 46-year-old Moore says. "Um, I don't know why. There seemed to be a real sort of obvious devotion to wanting to really explore this kind of music, and that it would take a little more than, y'know, a couple of years."

Has it bothered you the band never really crossed over to the mainstream?

"If it did, it certainly doesn't matter now," Moore says. "Maybe in the early '90s, when there was a lot of mainstream success being offered to, y'know, alternative rock bands.

"But Stone Temple Pilots or Bush or Pearl Jam, I mean, they were, like, first-album-success bands. We already sorta had a history. Plus we were ... unlistenable."

Moore explodes into laughter.

"Y'know, that kinda gets in the way of mainstream success!

"But what is the mainstream now? Is it Justin Timberlake? I don't even see myself in the same kind of, y'know, revolution as that kind of person. I don't even see that as the music scene."

In 1988, Sonic Youth displayed unexpected pop savvy when they made the fabulous The White(y) Album, recording it under the pseudonym Ciccone Youth because of its two wickedly grungy Madonna covers.

"Yeah, well, I don't think so because I don't think any of his music really has any sort of appeal or depth that maybe I found in Madonna's first forays," he says.

"And the Madonna thing had the added kind of intimacy factor of her reaching out of our neighbourhood.

"When she became a superstar, that was also very ... insane for people like us, because she literally came out of the [early-'80s New York City art] scene that we were all sort of involved with.

"Her and music and entertainment is a bit like Jean Michel Basquiat and the art world: those are the two people that came out of that scene that went just way beyond any kind of level of success that anybody ever even had any ambitions for.

The sort of music that Moore and bandmates Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley and Jim O'Rourke do like will be reflected in their support acts on the Sonic Nurse tour.

"Right now, there's this really interesting kind of thing going on where there's all these new bands that either deal with real sort of extreme noise music or inward kind of folk music," Moore says.

"Both these scenes are connected: they play together, they accept each other ... they're on the same page.

"In Australia, J Mascis [formerly of alt-rock deities Dinosaur Jr] is doing all the shows with us, but on the third slot we reached out to a lot of people in Australia that we wanted to play that sort of reflected that."

Well, not quite Australia, but close enough: guitarist Ranaldo hand-picked New Zealand rockers Cassette to play that third slot.

"It's pretty exciting for me, y'know, 'cause I like it all," Moore says of such support acts. "And I get involved with it quite a bit because it's a real community - I play with these people."

Those aspiring musicians who missed out on the support slot this time can at least take solace, for now, in Sonic Nurse. Which reminds me: was the album thus titled so Moore could play dress-ups like in the photo?

"No," he chuckles. "It was based on using Richard Prince's artwork for the record cover. He did a series of paintings all 'something' nurse: Washington Nurse, New England Nurse, Secret Nurse. So we said, 'Sonic Nurse'.

"But it also worked out fine because I was able to wear a nurse's mask in those photos. So, y'know, everything was groovy."

I guess Moore has just ruled out any chance of a "Timberlake Youth" project.